The controversial book by Alexander Litvinenko, the former FSB agent destined forever to be (inaccurately) remembered as “the poison spy” following his radioactive murder in London at the end of 2006, and co-written by Yuri Felshtinsky.

My job was re-editing the book ready for the paperback edition (the hardback’s release having been put forward following Litvinenko’s murder). Originally written in Russian, the English translation was often somewhat suspect, requiring a lot of tidying up. A lot of information was also missing – notably the first names and titles of many of the people mentioned in the book, adding to what was already a confusing read – which extensive research was able to rectify. Furthermore, the complexity of the central conspiracy theory was such that some structural editing was required – both in inserting paragraph and line breaks to help clarify the authors’ train of thought, and in re-arranging paragraphs and even chapters.

(Virgin Books, 2002, ISBN 0753506823, 304 pages, co-authored with Jim Smith)

“A highly useful guide… They read the films with a restrained intelligence that occasionally lights up with comedy.” (The Guardian)

“The ultimate word on the weird and wonderful world of Burton” (Film Review)

“As unconventional as Burton himself… impeccable” (Hotdog)

“Is it any good? Hell yes… an incredibly well researched casebook that covers a monstrous scope of information.” (Ain’t it Cool News)

Buy at Amazon.co.uk

Buy at Amazon.com

Read extract

Part of the acclaimed Virgin Film series, this critical guide to the work of director Tim Burton covers all aspects of his movies from the earliest student shorts up to Planet of the Apes. Includes all-new interviews, a foreword by Oscar-winning acting legend Martin Landau, and the first and only plot synopsis of Burton’s lost alien invasion surfer flick Luau.

Major re-structuring, re-writing and editing down of this unprecedented study of Michelangelo’s bank accounts, property holdings and finances. At the heart of the book was always a completely new way of looking at the artist – it was my job to make those revelations much, much clearer than the academic author had been able to.

Major re-structuring and occasional re-writing of this harrowing piece of investigative journalism, ten years in the making, which explores the background and story of a regime of sexual and physical abuse of mentally handicapped residents of a care home.

A re-issue of disgraced former Conservative MP Jonathan Aitken’s biography of disgraced US President Richard Nixon.

Editing largely involved reducing page count by c.25%, as well as standard fact-checking, etc.

Times Literary Supplement
No.5409, 1 December 2006

Internet Politics: States, Citizens, and New Communications Technologies
By Andrew Chadwick
Oxford University Press, New York / Oxford, 2006
ISBN 0-19-517773-8

(unedited text)

In the age of the Internet, news management has become increasingly difficult for politicians who, just a decade ago, could generally control most aspects of a developing story with relative ease. These days, maintaining a cozy relationship with Fleet Street alone is not enough to stop news getting out, as individual citizens with computers can ignore D-Notices and the libel laws with apparent impunity, spreading rumours of affairs just as easily as they can provide point-by-point critiques of speeches, policies and White Papers.

More determined activists, meanwhile, can use web technologies not just to organise real-world protests more easily than ever before, but also quickly mobilise like-minded individuals in concerted online attacks against politicians and organisations with whom they disagree. It can work the other way – MoveOn.org notably raising millions of dollars and funding numerous television adverts in support of the Democrat party in the 2004 US Presidential elections. Yet most politicians have thus far seen more threats than potential in the Internet – which might explain why so few MPs have strong web presences.

Andrew Chadwick, head of the Political Science department at Royal Holloway, has with his ‘Internet Politics’ aimed to provide a near-comprehensive overview of the vast array of approaches to political engagement online in a logical, largely jargon-free textbook format. Rather than focussing just on the professional politicians, he rightly acknowledges the impact of individual activists, web developers and citizens in driving new ideas and ways of involving anyone and everyone more closely in the public sphere. If anything, professional politicians have at best been playing catch-up to the amateurs, at worst entirely misunderstanding the potential benefits – as did Jack Straw in July 2006 when criticising TheyWorkForYou.com, a professional-looking amateur site giving quick and easy access to MP’ voting records and speeches that works much better than the official Parliament.uk website.

Starting with an overview of the Internet’s development – providing vital context for understanding just why it works in the way it does, how far it has managed to permeate society, and a realistic picture of its impact to date – Chadwick goes on to discuss various key issues in detail. His choices, ranging from ‘e-Democracy’ to the difficulties of regulating such a broad and ever-changing medium are all excellently explained. They more than adequately cover the prime concerns of all those using the Internet for political projects, be they individuals or governments, with few major omissions.

The only problem is – and this is an obstacle that no book on the Internet will be able to overcome – that no attempt to provide such a summary of even a small aspect of the world wide web can ever hope to be fully up-to-date. The first website only went live in August 1991, and the web is still so fast moving that even just a year ago the video sharing site YouTube, now one of the most popular on the net with more than 100 million daily hits, was practically unknown, indeed not even officially launched.

Since Chadwick’s book was written Britain has seen its first weblog written by a serving cabinet minister and its first interactive online public policy consultation using the user-edited ‘wiki’ format – both launched by David Miliband, Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Both have been criticised at least as much as they have been praised, while the latter was swiftly withdrawn after online sabotage by critics of the government. In the same week at the end of August 2006 that Miliband’s wiki came under attack, other web users were able to republish a New York Times piece that had been blocked to UK readers due to its legally and politically sensitive information about the controversial alleged plot to blow up airliners.

Also potentially problematic is the bibliography’s reliance on ‘old media’ sources – largely articles and books written by other academics working in the field. Yet when it comes to the Internet, the experts are generally mostly amateurs or enthusiasts working in their spare time, and few have seen their writings in print. Although web addresses swiftly go out of date – as those citing European Union websites found in May this year when the organization suddenly switched to the .eu domain – the lack of bibliographical references to some of the detailed online discussions of the issues that Chadwick has identified seems odd.

Chadwick is evidently more than aware of these limitations. The majority of his book underlines the lack of consensus on how to proceed with online political projects of whatever level of professionalism. With the web still being developed without any real guiding hand, with no effective systems of regulation, and with no proven models for online success in any area – be it commercial, political or personal – it is hard enough to keep track of recent developments, let alone predict the future paths of apparent trends. As he states in his conclusion, ‘If making predictions about the Internet’s role in shaping political institutions is difficult, thinking about the future of Internet policy issues is almost impossible.’

Chadwick has therefore sensibly set up a companion website to expand on and continually update this intelligent and considered textbook. Inexplicably, however, although the site is mentioned in the preface and Chadwick seems fully aware of the inbuilt obsolescence of the print version of his study, no URL is given, nor is it listed in the bibliography. The address is www.andrewchadwick.com and, used alongside the book, promises to be a fascinating resource for both students and political actors alike.

(Text copyright Jim Smith, J Clive Matthews & Virgin Books Ltd. – not to be reproduced in any form without premission)

The Grey Havens: Conclusion

There are some fans of The Lord of the Rings who routinely claim, when the numerous adaptations of Tolkien’s magnum opus deviate from the course of his original narrative, that he would have been “horrified” by what was being done to his story. To hold this view is to misunderstand his attachment to the antics of Frodo and his fellows. Asked about the reaction of his ardent fans from the United States to his books in the late 1960s, Tolkien stated that he was nowhere near as attached to his work as some of his readers appeared to be: ‘Many young Americans are involved in the stories in a way that I am not.’

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Extract from the Chapter on Ed Wood (1994)

Source Material: This is a biopic, so obviously the life and works of Edward D. Wood Jr. are the source. Burton had long been acquainted with the filmmaker’s much maligned oeuvre, ‘I was about ten years old when I first saw Plan 9 From Outer Space on television; some of the action takes place at the airport and the cemetery in Burbank, right near where I lived then.’ He has even risen to Wood’s defence when it has been suggested that his movies are ‘so bad that they’re good’ or that the writer/director/star of Glen or Glenda deserves his often used epitaph of ‘The worst director of all time’; ‘The film didn’t strike me as bad…it had great presence…personality. It wasn’t until much later that I saw [Wood’s other movies] and although those films don’t have similar settings you can see the in them the marks of a very personal universe.’ Continue Reading